Tuesday, August 21, 2018

We love putting pen to paper in our home! We draw, doodle, colour, paint, and practice creative writing every chance we get. It is well known that writing and drawing has lots of cognitive, physical, and emotional benefits for children and adults, apart from being fun.

Saturday, February 28, 2015

My children enjoy learning from the colourful, and inspiring ideas on the LEGO Play book. There are over 200 creative ideas on how we can use LEGO to build different things such as castles, beach boats and more. It is a wonderful tool to help children and adults build and play.

Sunday, July 20, 2014

I checked out this book A Compendium of Collective Nouns out of curiosity, as I find it is intriguing how collective nouns have come to be and are associated with things for example when we refer to accountants it is said, "a balance of accountants." It is fascinating to learn and use these during everyday conversations like saying, "an embarrassment of pandas" or saying "a parade of elephants". I enjoyed learning from and reading this book, which also gives graphic interpretations.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

I like Story Panda books that make children think and learn to write books. The stories and drawings open up dialogue, and spark creative writing when children write their own stories on the create mode option. Since the images are drawn in a simple way and the pictures are repetitious it motivates children to draw their own pictures and make up stories. There is also an option to share the stories children write with family and friends.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Gifts with photos are wonderful to give our family and friends or use it ourself, as they are memorable. I enjoyed using the Kulapix site to create a variety of cool products with the pictures my family and I have taken. Although, photography is one our favourite hobbies I don't think we do justice to it, as we don't end up printing the pictures. Printing the images that we most cherish helps us think of the special memories. Kulapix gives us many options to showcase our pictures through printing on mugs, cards, canvas and more.

Saturday, September 7, 2013

We enjoy colouring the Original DoodleArt Flowers poster as an activity to do in the evenings. This 24"x34" poster provides over 70 hours of creative colouring for the whole family. This poster kit includes 12 high quality, dual precision-tipped, washable, non-toxic colour markers. Since we did this activity as a family project we involved our 4 year old to participate in the colouring, although this kit is recommended for everyone over 8 years.

Saturday, May 25, 2013

Since 1981 Xara, one of UK's oldest software developers have made computer programs that allow us to become creative. They have wonderful programs for us to do such as drawings, illustration, web design and more. They have developed award winning programs such as the world's first check-as-you type spell checker, drawing software that provide real-time anti-aliasing and transparency control and much more. Xara software now operates under MAGIX, and provide high-quality innovative software, online services and digital contests for multimedia communications.

Thursday, May 9, 2013

For 125 years, Parker has created pens that redefine writing. Now as handwriting makes a comeback, it would be a perfect gift to give our dads or the men in our lives :)

This Parker Urban is a cool pen that redefines modern writing, as it combines ergonomics with art to give an unconventional shape. It has the perfect weight and balance to make beautiful curved writing. I really like the shine and the beautiful black colour body of the pen. This modern premium quality pen has an asymmetric cisele pattern, and provides durability and flamboyance.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

My children are very fond of Geronimo Stilton. I introduced the fun stories of Geronimo Stilton to my children through the comic collection by papercutz. Both my children enjoy listening to and looking through the colourful images of these graphic novels, which allow them to imagine the story more easily.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

This year we can
be part of contributing to a good cause by decorating and sharing virtual eggs
with our family and friends. Heinz and
PAAS will be donating $1 up to $25,000 from now until March 31st for
every virtual egg we decorate and share using the Free Easter Egg DecoratorApp.

This app can be easily downloaded
for free via the App Store onto our iOS devices or if you don’t own an iPad,
iPod or iPhone download it to your computer or laptop.

Here are
some app images of the eggs we decorated.
My children and I found it easy to use the app to decorate the eggs. It is lots of fun to do this is for a good
cause, so download your free app and start decorating and sharing with your
friends and family.

We also decorated
some real eggs for fun using the PAAS kits.

There are seven different PAAS egg decorating kits for us to choose from.

This kit Deggorating Doodles allowed us to use the stencils and pens provided to doodle and decorate.

To ensure that the eggs don’t crack when they are boiling put 2 tbsp
of Heinz Distilled White Vinegar to 4 cups of water before placing the eggs in the pot to boil. Adding the
vinegar will also allow the shells to easily peel off when they are cooked.

We used
PAAS egg colour tablets to colour the eggs.
To make the colour on the eggs vivid and bright, add 3 tbsp of Heinz Distilled White
Vinegar to 1 tablet and allow it to dissolve. Once it dissolves add ½ cup of water and
stir.

For the traditional colours use lemon juice instead of vinegar to the first line in the PAAS colour cups, then add water to the second line.For the pink PAAS tablet to get a brilliant colour the box suggested we use only water.

Monday, March 11, 2013

As parents, we always have debates with our children about washing their hands properly. This contest by Lysol No-Touch Hand Soap is a cool way to encourage and engage our children to make a healthy habit of washing hands before eating. I believe when children become a part of something and get involved they value things a little more. So I really enjoyed designing our unique Lysol No-Touch Hand Soap Dispenser and happily displayed it by our kitchen sink.

To decorate our bird-butterfly dispenser, also known as Birdterfly we needed...

Lysol No-Touch Hand Soap Dispenser

craft foam sheet

scissor

2 beads for the eye

2 craft metal wires for the antenna/ear

red duct tape for the beak

1 craft bird feather

a piece of silly band for the worm

a piece of thick wool

markers and acrylic paint to decorate

a piece of women's stockings

glue gun

First cut a piece of the women's stockings to fit over the Lysol No-Touch Hand Soap Dispenser. This way we can operate the on/off button behind the container and change the refill without damaging our crafty piece.

I also put a hole so the liquid can come out. Since the stocking is very light the sensors work we didn't have to put holes in those areas. We used a glue gun to attach the metal wires over the stocking then placed the beads.

Then we secured the top portion by tying a thick wool and covering the written area that was visible.

My husband suggested we put a mohawk feather like a Cardinal on top to camouflage the stockings.

We cut a piece of red duct tape and attached it over the dispenser piece that was sticking out to make it resemble a beak. My daughter suggested that we put a piece of silly band to make it look like the bird is having a meal. We placed the tape over the stocking and secured it with the glue gun.

For the bottom part of the dispenser we cut a craft foam piece and made sure to make two holes so the sensors work, then decorated it using markers and paint.

Everyone took a turn to colour and paint before we put glue to the middle section of foam and attached it to the dispenser.

Here are some tips...

First plan so everyone is in the same page :) We started off wanting to make a squirrel, then thought a bird would be better but also wanted to include our butterfly idea. So we combined all our ideas to make this Birdterfly.

Get all your materials ready and see if they work.

Remember to not cover the sensor after all we want the No-Touch Hand Soap Dispenser to work.

Lysol Hand Soap Contest

You can be part of this initiative and get your crafty children involved by joining the Lysol contest starting March 11th.

Decorate and share the pictures of your crafty creatures and enter for a chance to win a mini-tablet daily. Here are the contest rules and regulations, don't forget to read them before you start your project :)

Sunday, March 3, 2013

For
children play is a form of serious learning, so let this March Break be a Time
for Play. This list of specially priced DK Books will inspire
and help solve the problem of "What should I do?" questions especially during the upcoming March Break. These books will allow fun and creativity to flow.

This Alien Robots Science Book will be enjoyed by all the children and parents, although it is recommended for children age 7 to 12 years. I like this super cool book as it has lots of fun robots that we can assemble with our children.

I got my children's help to find the correct pieces to assemble and make six awesome robots.

This video will show how the robot spun, while the robot spun against the wood it made noise so lower the volume on your computer if needed :)

This Book Made Me Do It is a fun book that we can keep looking and learning from. We can learn many interesting things from this book and I really recommend it for everyone. We can brush up our know how about so many things such as arts, crafts, horoscope, interesting facts, origami, sports, food and more.

We made this gooey slime, which is a messy but a fun experiment that children and adults will enjoy.

To make this you will need...

1 cup cornstarch plus more1/2 cup waterfew drops food colouringPut the cornstarch in a bowl then slowly add about 1/2 cup of water, stirring all the time. It will become a gooey mixture. Add the colouring then stir. We can also add glitter at this point but we didn't do this part.

Add more cornstarch to make the mixture roll into a dough between the hands and you will notice the gooey slime melt but when it drops it will become a solid and stick to the table.

Monday, February 25, 2013

The Peaceable Forest is an ancient Indian Vedic tale about Kindness to Animals, written by Kosa Ely. In this ancient parable
from India was passed on to children through an oral tradition. This story reminds children to be compassionate to all living creatures and respecting life.In this story a forest-dwelling hunter learns that cruelty has consequences and
that compassion has rewards. When the hunter meets the wise man, Narada,
"Do unto others as they would do unto you" takes on a very concrete
meaning. The sage leads the hunter on an imagined journey in which the hunter
becomes the hunted. When the hunter realizes his actions affect other living
things, he has a change of heart and begins to live in peace with the animals
he once pursued for fun and without reason. My daughter said that her favourite part was in the end when the hunter becomes a good person and lived in a peaceful way.

Anna Johansson's richly
detailed illustrations show the animal kingdom and enchanted forests with fine
lines and luminous colors. The
Peaceable Forest is an inspiring picture
book that illustrates flora and fauna native to India. My children found this book to be colourful and fun to read.
The interesting pictures will attract young readers as they see
the world in the perspective of the animals. My son liked observing the pictures and asking questions
regards to the characters' clothing and liked the picture of the hunter's stance when
he was shooting the arrow.

The beautiful and accessible
message within The Peaceable Forest opens
up conversations about kindness and nonviolence to all living things, which teaches children to respect life in all its forms. After reading and looking through the book we can have meaningful conversations with our children about this philosophy.

Monday, February 11, 2013

Instead of giving lollipops and candy why not give these cute 2oz containers of play-doh to your child's classmates. Children over 2 years will enjoy these cute colourful containers of play-doh, which will allow them to make whatever they want. My daughter made small heart shapes and my son made a play-doh flower for me :)

I enjoyed playing with the play-doh as well, while showing my kids how to make flowers with it.

These containers of play-doh will keep children entertained for quite a while, and I am sure many parents and teachers will appreciate this :)

I like that the package comes with 15 containers and stickers for us to personalize and place on the container. I used a marker to personalize it because pencils and regular pens didn't work well. These play-doh containers, along with the printable cards below would be awesome treats for our children's friends at school.

Sometimes we don't have the best way with words. This Valentine's Day help kids say something sweet to their friends with Wreck-It Ralph Valentine's Cards!

Wreck-It Ralph will be available on HD Digital Feb 12 and on 3D Blu-ray Combo Pack on Mar 5

Welcome to our virtual home. You will see posts about food we make, fun things we create, our renovation projects, places we travel, entertainment we enjoy, family related reviews & giveaways for you to win.